International workshop “(Re)Thinking the Role of Religion in Social and Humanitarian Action” — Berlin and online, 18-19 June 2026 

Research on welfare and humanitarianism in the Middle East has experienced a renewed interest over the past two decades (Watenpaugh, 2015; Ruiz De Elvira, 2019; Naïli, Napolitano, Piraud-Fournet, 2022). They are notably marked by a growing interest in the role of faith-based actors in assisting refugee populations or those considered vulnerable (Fiddian-Qasmiyeh, 2011). Long focused on international actors and the transnational dimensions of aid — Christian missions (Sanchez Summerer & Okkenhaug, 2020), Protestant organizations such as the Near East Relief (Rodogno, 2022; Bourmaud, 2020), or transnational Islamic associations (Bellion-Jourdan, 2002; Benthall, 2016) —, recent studies increasingly turn their attention to the role of local actors. Works on the Red Crescent (Moeller, 2016), Islamic NGOs (Challand, 2008), church-related organizations (Rioli, 2020; Neveu, 2023), and charitable associations (Turiano, 2021; Fallas, 2023) seek to move beyond the Eurocentric approaches that long dominated the history of humanitarianism, showing instead how these structures often constitute the first networks of solidarity and relief on the ground.

This burgeoning historiography highlights the crucial role played by religious institutions and faith-based actors in humanitarian and social action in the Middle East (Paulmann & Moeller, 2023) — whether churches (Chatelard, 2011; Bava, 2018; Neveu, 2022; Levant, 2022), Muslim clerics, faith-based NGOs, or charitable associations (Pierret, 2011; Ruiz de Elvira, 2019). Numerous studies have examined the close links between preaching, charity, and humanitarian action (Bellion-Jourdan, 2002), notably through the analysis of certain Christian organizations for which social engagement constitutes a privileged vehicle for the dissemination of religious discourse. In this regard, Fatiha Kaouès refers, in the case of Protestant organizations in Lebanon, to a form of “social and humanitarian evangelization” (Kaouès, 2011).

However, despite the richness of this body of work, few studies adopt a diachronic approach that would make it possible to analyse these dynamics over the long term and to grasp their reconfigurations. Research often remains segmented by confession or denomination, overlooking dynamics of contact, mimicry, and even competition between religious traditions. Moreover, the material and performative dimension of preaching remains largely underexplored, even though the material turn in the study of religion provides relevant tools for examining it.

By adopting a broad definition of preaching — understood as a device aimed at “(re)making people believe,” embodied in the presence of an individual or a group within a given territory in order to form or strengthen a community of believers — this workshop seeks to explore the links between preaching and socio-humanitarian action in the contemporary Middle East. From a Weberian perspective, preaching develops in a context of religious crisis, which distinguishes it from the mere care of souls. Consequently, contexts of social and humanitarian crises appear as privileged sites for understanding this constitutive device of faith experiences, beyond the sole framework of the sermon or religious discourse. The chosen approach is deliberately cross-cutting: it brings Islam, Judaism, and Christianity into dialogue, while situating the Middle East within a global perspective. Indeed, many of the actors and institutions involved maintain close ties with European, American (Granick, 2021), or other international partners and funders. These non–Middle Eastern actors will therefore also be taken into account.

A number of questions will guide the discussions: How does preaching accompany and shape social and humanitarian action? In what forms and according to which modalities does it unfold? How does it influence the understanding and implementation of aid? Conversely, how do the logics and mechanisms of assistance shape preaching? How are these forms of discourse received by the “beneficiaries” — whether believers or not — in camps, parishes, or community centers? What reconfigurations do these interactions bring about in terms of religious authority and legitimacy? Three main lines of inquiry are proposed. Three main areas of reflection are proposed:

1. Actors and (Re)Deployments

This line of inquiry will focus on the ways in which religious authorities and faith-based actors (associations, churches, NGOs) have become involved in the field of social and humanitarian aid and have adapted their preaching to the populations concerned. From the 1950s–1960s onwards, many Christian missions established in the Middle East increasingly turned toward social and humanitarian action, in response to the conflicts and population displacements affecting the region. In order to carry out this work, they often founded associations and NGOs. This process of “NGO-ization,” which is not specific to Christian missions, invites reflection on the various forms of redeployment of faith-based actors, as well as on the new modalities of preaching that accompany this shift. The role of the Muslim Brotherhood in welcoming Palestinian refugees after 1948—particularly in the areas of health and education—although omnipresent in Christian missionary sources, for example, remains insufficiently documented. One may also ask whether new actors of preaching emerge, and whether new “vocations” appear in times of crisis. In contexts of upheaval, how is the place of religion itself being reconfigured?

2. Discursive Registers

A second line of inquiry will focus on the discursive forms of preaching. Humanitarian and charitable organizations, as well as faith-based actors, draw on multiple registers that invoke the notion of crisis: the crisis of the social body, linked to migration and the dispersion of believers, as well as the moral crisis. Presentations will examine these discursive registers of preaching with attention to the targeted audiences : the faithful, religious hierarchies, or donors. Among these registers, eschatology is a central example: how are conflicts, civil wars, or economic and ecological crises presented as divine punishment? The community of believers is then constituted as both a bulwark and a remedy against the crisis. What content do the sermons convey? Do they aim to reassure, to pacify, or to mobilize donors, volunteers, and participants ? How does preaching interact with — or even overlap — other modes of action such as advocacy, mediation, or lobbying ? The discussions will also address linguistic, translation, and dissemination issues, as well as the tools and platforms used to convey these messages, notably online.

3. Materialities and Constraints

A third area of inquiry will focus on the materiality and staging of preaching, that is, its performances within relief and assistance frameworks. Where do these preachings take place, and which spaces—material or immaterial—do they occupy or establish? From places of worship to dispensaries, from classrooms to digital platforms for humanitarian communication, and from camp sites to online applications, all of these settings serve as potential stages for preaching. This theme will also consider how preaching materializes through donations, raffles, lotteries, or other forms of fundraising, depending on the targeted beneficiaries. What are the practical modalities—financial and logistical—of these operations? Moreover, it will examine how to connect, on an international scale, the various performative spaces through which mobilization strategies around a common cause are deployed, from donors to the faithful. Finally, the issue of constraint will be addressed, particularly by analyzing how confinement and encampment logics contribute to redefining the spaces and media of preaching.

18 – 19 June 2026, Centre Marc Bloch, Tillion room, 7th floor, Friedrichstraße 191, 10117 Berlin, and Online. Organized by The ANR PredicMO in partnership with the University of Marburg, ReliGIS and the French Institute of Islamic Studies.

Poster and Program flyer designed by Clément Blin (intern at the ANR PredicMO)

PROGRAM

18th June 2026

Zoom Link / ID of the meeting: 816 1846 8719 / Secret code: 910492

08:45 AM – 9:10 AM – Welcome of Participants

9:10 AM – 9:30 AM – Introduction and Conceptual Framework by Annalaura Turiano (IREMAM, CNRS, amU, ANR PredicMO) and Esther Moeller (Marburg University)

9:30 AM – 11:00 AM – Panel 1 – Spiritual Engagement and Economic Rationales: The Entangled Dynamics of Welfare and Preaching
Chair: Nazan Maksudyan (Centre Marc Bloch)

9:30 AM – 10:15 AM – Gabriel Doyle (Koç University Research Center for Anatolian Civilizations and the Istanbul Research Institute), “Not a single penny of my lottery earnings is present inside this mosque”: Islamic Morality and Urban Patronage in 1960s Istanbul.

10:15 AM – 11:00 AM – Tea Pitiurishvili (Tbilisi State University), Seeking the Path: Ne’matullahia Order’s One Branch from Traditional Mysticism to a Socially Engaged Form of Sufism.

11:00 AM – 11:30 AM – Coffee break

11:30 AM – 1:00 PM – Panel 2 – The Moral Politics of Humanitarianism
Chair: Giulia Scalettaris (Centre Marc Bloch)

11:30 AM – 12:15 PM – Carla Tiefenbacher (University of Köln), “May God reward us for our efforts”: Voluntourism, Humanitarian Crises, and How to Preach Catholicism in the Spanish-Moroccan Borderlands.

12:15 PM – 1:00 PM – Estella Carpi (University College London), The Moral Politics of Faith-Inspired Humanitarianism in Lebanon.

1:00 PM – 2:00 PM – Lunch

2:00 PM – 3:30 PM – Panel 3 – Faith-Based Humanitarianism and Soft Power
Chair: Karène Sanchez-Summerer (University of Groningen)

2:00 PM – 2:45 PM – Natalia Liviero (Florida International University), Faith-Based Development and Humanitarian Aid in the Middle East: A Case Study of Caritas Jordan and Caritas Lebanon.

2:45 PM – 3:30 PM – William Guerraiche (Abrahamic Family House, Abu Dhabi), The Emirates: The Religious Dimension of Humanitarian Aid.

3:30 PM – 4:00 PM – Coffee break

4:00 PM – 5:30 PM – Panel 4 – Moral Grammars, Religious Norms
Chair: Norig Neveu (IREMAM, CNRS, amU)

4:00 PM – 4:45 PM – Marie Kortam (Beyond Compliance Consortium – University of York & War Child Alliance), Religious Norms, Shari’a, and the Moral Regulation of Harm in Humanitarian Crisis Settings.

4:45 PM – 5:30 PM – Sebastian Willert (Leibniz Institute for Jewish History and Culture), Of Jewish Sanctuary and Scholarship: Preaching as a Catalyst for Academic Humanitarianism in Palestine, 1933–1945.

5:30 PM – 6:00 PM – Final discussion

19th June

Zoom Link  / ID of the meeting:  879 2114 0861 / Secret code: 451817

9:00 AM – 10:30 AM – Panel 5 – Patterns of “Preaching Development”
Chair: Annalaura Turiano (IREMAM, CNRS, amU, ANR PredicMO)

9:00 AM – 9:45 AM – Zeaad Yaghi (American University of Beirut), The Rise and Fall of Le Plan Vert: On French-Catholic State Planning and Agricultural Development in Postcolonial Rural Lebanon 1959–1970.

9:45 AM – 10:30 AM – Mara Leichtman (Michigan State University), Preaching Kuwaiti Shi‘i Islamic Humanitarianism in East Africa.

10:30 AM – 11:00 AM – Coffee break

11:00 AM – 1:15 PM – Panel 6 – Discursive Registers: Between Reformism and Moral Rhetorics 
Chair: Malak Labib (Centre Marc Bloch, Fellow of the Gerda Henkel Foundation)

11:00 AM – 11:45 AM – Seda Altuğ (University of Boğazıcı), Many Ways of Preaching in French-Syria: Appeals of Dominican Missionaries and Entreaties of Locals (1936–1946).

11:45 AM – 12:30 PM – Foued Ghorbali (Gafsa University), Prêcher en aidant : pratiques socio-humanitaires, autorité religieuse et circulations transnationales en Tunisie contemporaine.

12:30 PM – 1:15 PM – Marie Levant (Ifpo, Forum Basiliense Resident Fellow at the University of Basel), Transnational Catholic Aid to Palestinian Refugees in Lebanon (1948–1958): Moral Norms, Ecclesial Imperatives, and Pastoral Preaching.

1:15 PM – 2:00 PM – Lunch

2:00 PM – 3:00 PM – Review of the Second Day and Publication Prospects 

Also available on the PredicMO ANR hypotheses blog

À retrouver sur le site de l’IREMAM

 

 

 

 

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